For the sake of this article, we will be referring to your overall health and fitness results—but this topic can transition over to just about any aspect of your life from your job, business, personal life, home life, etc. The topic at hand is complacency and what it means to your success when it comes to health and fitness. It’s a shame that we even need to talk about this, but unfortunately, all of us see complacency around us on a daily basis—some cases it might be the man in the mirror.

Slacking with your workouts

It’s easy to get yourself off track and never hop back on the train. You might have good intentions on realigning with your goals, but most people never truly get back to where they need to be. We live in a society where, unfortunately, it’s acceptable to be obese or worse, morbidly obese. We don’t want to hurt people’s feelings by calling them overweight or fat. As soon as you say something it’s as if you were some sort of homegrown terrorist plotting a mass genocide on a whole demographic of overweight individuals and that you’re some horrible person. It’s actually quite sad when you think about it.

But, complacency forms bad habits. And once those bad habits are formed, it’s tough to break them. Maybe you were working out five days a week, then went down to three days a week, then one, and eventually you stopped all together. I get it, our lives are busy. We are always on the go. We have families to take care of. We work long hours. I get it. I’m there with you. I run a business, I have a wife, I have a son, I exercise daily, and I am still able to focus on my nutrition. Is it easy? No. But it’s worth it in my opinion. However, I could easily slack off and put on ten pounds of fat without batting an eye by not being active and consuming the wrong food choices. Complacency breeds complacency. It’s a downward spiral.

Think about your workouts for a second. Have you ever just not felt strong so you lowered all of your weights for the week? Then the following week you still didn’t feel like pushing yourself, so you lowered your intensity and drive again? All of a sudden, before you know it your strength is gone and the weights you were once pushing are out of sight now. You need to get your mind right and stay in the fight. When your mentality shifts and you take your foot off the pedal, you’re bound to start slowing down unless you dig deep and slam that pedal through the floor. The days that you don’t feel like doing anything are the days you need to double down and get after it and stay focused. Those are the days that will build and shape who you are and your mental strength.

Loosening up on your nutrition

The IIFYM (if it fits your macros) crew will want to debate me on this as they work their nutrition around whatever foods they want to consume—but, for the majority of the people, they aren’t following an IIFYM lifestyle or nutrition plan. There’s nothing wrong with IIFYM, it’s just some of the individuals don’t truly grasp the concept and think they can eat McDonald’s at every meal so long as they don’t go over their calories for the day. Unfortunately, all calories are not created equal. This in itself can be its own article.

People for whatever reason decide to give into temptation. The strong-willed will easily jump back on the horse before they completely fall off. However, most people end up falling off the horse and get stuck in the mud. One day of bad eating becomes two days which becomes a week, and then weeks later they are feeling like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers. Does that make them change their tune? Nope. Why? Because that’s our society today. No one is going to say anything about their weight. And so the downward spiral continues.

Too many people use food to deal with stress and emotions. Not many people look at food as fuel for both the mind and the body. When individuals are upset, they generally turn to something sweet like cake, ice cream, candy, etc. Some turn to alcohol, which in itself adds up quickly when you partake in more than one beverage. It’s “accepted” in today’s society. Think I’m missing the mark? Look to your left and to your right. All of those people are in shape and healthy, right? Hardly. They have fallen into their own complacency trap.

Everyone has good intentions of exercising and eating a well-balanced diet, yet very few follow through with it. When you surround yourself with the wrong crowd, it’s easy to follow the flock. When you are weak-minded (or easily influenced), the last thing you want to do is hang out with people who will change your behaviors. If you’re exercising regularly and eating healthy foods, these individuals aren’t going to want you to succeed. They want to drag you down to their level to make themselves feel better. They feel uncomfortable around you when you’re fit because that’s something they strive to look like, yet they don’t have the will-power to execute.

Complacency kills

When you start feeling comfortable with where you are is when you will start seeing yourself taking steps backwards. When you feel satisfied is when you will slip up. Challenge yourself every day to hold strong and weather the storm no matter what comes your way. When you’re head-strong and motivated to not only hit your goals, but to surpass them is when you will see results.

Don’t settle for average and follow what everyone else does. Those individuals are complacent. They are the sheep while you should be the wolf. They are happy with how they look and feel (but shouldn’t), they are happy with barely getting by with their career, they are ok with the amount of money sitting in the bank, they are satisfied with their relationships at home. These people are only fooling themselves. They just don’t want to put in the work—because it’s difficult and time consuming. It requires an effort. It’s just as easy to say “the hell with it” as it is to make it happen and succeed. The only decision you need to make is the direction you want to go.